We just held our annual Staff Day last Friday, and it was a good one! For those interested, here’s some of what we did:

In the morning, we had food (very important at any Staff Day event). Then our library director spoke about change, his projections for the next year, and about his trip with the Urban Libraries Council to Singapore and Hong Kong. Then a comedy troupe performed for us for about an hour, and did all sorts of team building types of skits (yes, that involved us).

Then we had a set of breakout sessions. I was one of those – I did a shortened version of my Introduction to Web 2.0 presentation – it went well, with lots of questions and comments the rest of the day.

Other morning breakout sessions – View from the Other Side of the Counter: Managing Customer Service Perspectives, Creating Stress Resilience, See No Movies? Hear No Music? Speak No Catalog?, and Kansas City Hot Spots. Three IT staffers did the “See No Movies” session – they focused on new things to do on our public PCs, like how to download an MP3 file, how to burn a CD, etc.

Lunch came next, along with a gaming demonstration – DDR (Dance Dance Revolution Extreme, to be exact) for anyone who wanted to experience it. Everyone thought it was extremely fun (or funny, depending on one’s point of view). As you can see from the photo, there was definitely a crowd!

Then afternoon breakout sessions. Crystal, who attended the Gaming in Libraries conference in December, spoke about games, and what our gaming taskforce is planning to submit to management group. Great presentation, and it really got a lot of staff talking and thinking about games, programming around games, and what our library can do to reach out to the gaming community.

Other afternoon breakout sessions? Let’s Play Yan-Koloba, Healthy Habits, Storytelling Adventures, and a tour of the Central Library.

Then more food – check out this video of the two chocolate fondue pots that were set up! After the short break, we participated in a team-building exercize, then had a closing Q&A time with the director, gave out awards, and held a raffle.

In general, here’s what went on: change, Web 2.0, gaming, new technology, customer service, and team-building. Yes, and food. All great things to talk about in a library!

What does your library do? Is there time for staff to get together, discuss possibilities for the next year, learn something new, and celebrate doing a good job as a team? If not, I’d suggest starting – what’s not to love about these things?

I’m all agreed that DRM doesn’t work in libraries – if it disappeared, then iPods would work with services like Overdrive and netLibrary. But look at some of the thoughts the author has about how to assign value (if the thing being purchased isn’t the music itself):

Linking music downloads to concert promotion/tickets

Liner notes

other branded multi-media beyond the music file itself

superior quality to files found in the wild

Some of these ideas are leaving traditional types (that’d be libraries and record stores) in the dust. Example – Linking music downloads to tickets – where does that leave the library’s music collection, or future music purchases? Also – other branded multi-media… hmm… at least with this added value item, patrons could still come to the library to access the value-added thing via the web.

Most likely there would still be a way to purchase music that would make sense for libraries (ie., subscription-based services). Still…

Also – the article mentions that there was recently a conference called “Music 2.0” – wow. Again, it’s not just libraries and Library 2.0 – many different industries are dealing with the same notions.

The one thing that stood out to me is the top three criteria respondents use for deciding which electronic information source to use: 1. provides worthwhile information; 2. Provides free information; and 3. Based on ease of use.

84% of respondents use search engines to begin an information search … 1% begin the search on a library website. That makes perfect sense – we currently don’t have too much actual information residing on our websites.

What do we have? We have pointers to information – pointers to the catalog, to databases, to other websites. More Subject Guides and original articles focusing on how to find niche information is a good way to start bridging this gap. Focused guides and articles will also put those parts of our website in a search engine’s hit lists.

“Library card holders use information resources more than non-card holders, and they are more favorably disposed to libraries than non-card holders.” OK – this is one of those silly parts … really, did this need to be studied? This is like doing a study on exercise to see if it really does help you lose weight… just a little pet peave of mine…

Big flags should go up here:
1. “Information consumers use the library. They use the library less and read less since they began using the Internet.”
2. “Borrowing print books is the library service most used.”

“Users are not aware of the electronic resources libraries make freely available.” Wow. Many libraries hide them under the phrase “library databases” – what’s that mean? Some of us try to bring them out a little more, by calling them Magazines, Newspapers, and More” or “Find articles.” But of course, that only works for people who visit your library (in person or digitally).

We need to be meeting our customers in the community, with databases in hand. Visit schools – do an in-service. How about chamber of commerce brown bag style presentations? How about inviting yourself to a business meeting?

Over 80 % of 14-24 year olds have a library card, but most (73%) visit at least once a year. Re-read that statistic this way: 73% of our future adult patrons visit us about once a year. Yikes.

Double wow – most customers use email, search engines, and IM. But what do libraries provide? Access to all these (although I have been to libraries that restrict both email and IM). But how about training? Probably search engine training, possibly training in setting up an email account – but certainly no IM training.

Triple wow – “In the 12 years that search engines have been in existence, they have achieved a familiarity rating that is slightly higher than that of physical libraries and considerably higher than that of online libraries.” But – libraries have been around for centuries, for pete’s sake! Tell me – who’s marketing correctly, and who’s providing a service that people want?

A quote from an individual – “I despise searching the library for books and other sources. It takes a long time and rarely can you find sources needed. This difficult process is the first thing I think of when I think of using the library” (from an 18 year old). Ouch. OK – to be fair, there are good quotes, too.

“Respondents feel that the local bookstore is more a suitable source of current materials than their library.” I’ve seen a small flurry of staff emails today working on that very problem. Bookstores know in advance that certain books will probably be hot, when new movies are out, etc. We, as “Information Specialists,” SHOULD be able to find and use that same information. Why aren’t we?

Again, “Awareness of electronic databases and electronic materials at the library is low. Awareness of library Web sites and online library catalogs is high.” We’re obviously doing a good job of leading customers to our library catalog, but not to our databases.

“Most respondents do not seek assistance when using library electronic resources.” Which is why we need to get out from behind the service desk – the idea of roving reference is a great one.

Reasons for never using the library website:
1. didn’t know it existed – We need to put the library’s URL EVERYWHERE. But just for starters – that’s passive pushing. Active pushing would be sending actual library staff out of the library, doing presentations in the community. Placing ads in the gaming stores around town. Sponsoring a poetry reading at a coffee shop. Etc. etc. etc.
2. Other Web sites have better information – Wow – that’s very true. Think about it – They’re really comparing one measly website (the library website) with billions of websites (via google). Who’s going to win? But that’s ok. We can’t be everything… but we can be the best at some things, like local information. Our library websites can be the first and the best stop for information about our communities.
3. can’t find the Web site – Refer to my thought on #1 above…

I loved it – first off, telling a long story that delivered a message rather than the usual powerpoint with pictures of people doing techie stuff – that’s so cool!

But even better – his story really DOES illustrate what’s going on in libraries and with the whole web 2.0 trend. People aren’t just reading webpages… they’re not just finding articles someone else wrote and printing them off. People are communicating – they’re interacting with each other… they’re writing their OWN articles. They are connecting with each other.